


Corrupted We Stand, Broken We Fall?

by TheOnlyHuman



Series: Et daemonia nobis ad infernum [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman Beyond
Genre: 'accidental' overdose, (not really) - Freeform, Attempted Suicide, Barbara is kinda mean in the start, Bat Demon, Bat Family Feels, Bruce doesn't say 'i love you' enough, Commissioner Barbara Gordon - Freeform, Cutting (mentioned), Depression, Duke is awesome, Duke is badass, Female Terry McGinnis, I'm crying, Implied Fem! Dick Grayson/Jason Todd, Nyssa Wayne, Nyssa needs help, Old Norse (mentioned), Suicidal Fem!Terry McGinnis, Suicidal Tendencies, Suicidal Terry McGinnis, This is all his fault, This is really dark, Thought you should know, Trans Nyssa, Trans Nyssa (Batman), Trans Terry McGinnis, Why Icarus speaks Old Norse idk, and I named him Icarus, and so not human, as in, attempted drowning, attempted hanging, attempted hanging from household appliances, attempted jumping from a rooftop, attempted suicide with ammunitions, barely mentioned, blame Hetalia, but it gets better, but then she gets nicer, great parenting, hospitalised for overdose, i know some Greek mythos, implied human/demon, implied suicidal Barbara, it's briefly skimmed over, nice job Bruce, no he's not related to that guy, no this is not that type of fic, not entirely at least, or at all, so technically, talk-downs, that bat demon from that batman movie that gave Bruce power is in this, the suicidal person is persuaded to not kill themselves, yes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 12:59:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17142194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOnlyHuman/pseuds/TheOnlyHuman
Summary: ((2051-present furture))Five times Nyssa nearly committed suicide and that one time that the light nearly got her permanently.Set in the same world (my World 11) as Time Fucking Travel's time jump. (That world, yes, you might understand more if you read that first ((Officially finished)).





	Corrupted We Stand, Broken We Fall?

 

~~Enjoy the last update of 2018! Merry Christmas, everyone!~~

 

 

 

 

-/-/-

**The First.**

-/-/-

 

Nyssa stares at the thick lead and wonders if it's long enough to wind around her neck. She gets her answer as she tests it.

Indeed. It is.

"Perfect," she murmurs quietly in the huge expanse of a kitchen. Once, she remembers it had bustled with life, with loud noises and nice smells but now, two years after Alfred's death it has turned into something neither her nor Bruce use. Nyssa, because she was too young and small to know how to cook, only seven, and Bruce because he was always too 'busy'.

Nyssa knew her father stayed away from the huge room because he couldn't take the memories it brought forth. The emotions it churned in his gut.

That was why she'd picked this room; he was less likely to find her until it was too late. Which was just what she wanted.

The wire belonged to the toaster, in fact. It was long, thick and sturdy. It would hold her, thin and light as she was, if she wrapped the loop around her neck lightly (only once, as to make it look like an accident) and balanced herself in between the plugged in plug and the machine itself, using the counter as leverage. She could hang there, hang there for days if needed because the line was strong.

Nyssa let the smile rise before she knew what it was. It grew over her face, twisting her lips and making her eyes shine. It was horrid and cruel and full of such loathing and hatred of life that in all the worlds it could not truly belong to a child such as her.

She was doing this.

Finally, she was escaping the hell that was this cold manor and her even colder, silent, emotionless father. She was leaving this body that was not hers, solidifying the name she'd chosen. Tonight and forever more it was Nyssa; not Terry.

_Finally._

The line was secure, it would go taut as soon as she added weight - namely, herself.

And Bruce would never find out until she was long gone.

Nyssa stepped off the chair, carefully placed to make it look like she was aiming for the cupboard with the sweetie jar in it and she'd _slipped_ and ended up in the huge loop that was the toaster lead. It was ingenius, even if she had to say so herself and she did not give praise lightly, too much like her stern lipped father in that case.

The wire which coiled around like a panther's tail when in wait, snapped firm.

Nyssa closed her eyes, relishing the quick firm burn of rubber against her neck, letting her ears drown out the loud clatter the toaster made as it caught in its place and rushed off the end of the tabletop, tightening the loop as it still held her up. For a second, her eyes bulged from lack of air so she closed them and fell limp, seemingly 'giving in'. Finally she would be _free_ \--

Two large hands gripped at her, one at her waist pulling her up so she wasn't being effectively strangled anymore, with the other going up to claw at the wire around her neck. Nyssa opened her eyes, gasping at the air that felt all too warm and all too cold as she came face to face with a horrified Bruce.

"Terry!" He snapped his fingers in front of her eyes when they fell out of focus. When she blinked at him, tears gathering in her eyes, he hushed her choked cries. "It's okay, chum. Don't worry, daddy's got you. Daddy's here, he won't let anything happen, it was just an accident, yeah? You're fine now, it's okay, let it all out, shh."

She cried as he cradled her in his lap, and he thought it was because she was scared from her near brush with death. Truthfully, Nyssa cried because she'd failed, because that was  _not_ her name.

After that, Bruce moved the jar of sweets onto the kitchen table.

They didn't speak of the 'accident' ever again.

 

-/-/-

**The Second.**

-/-/-

 

She blinked at the gun in her hand, weighed it in her palm, found the heaviness satisfying and loaded it. Nyssa was fourteen now and although she'd thought about cutting her wrists, she'd decided she wanted something quicker. Quicker had either been an overdose or this.

Bruce knew she knew what the drugs she was meant to take looked like. In the end, if this didn't work she supposed she could just take the wrong ones and say her headache (which was what she took them for, when they got real bad) had been so terrible her vision had blurred and she'd picked up the wrong bottle.

It would be written off as an unfortunate accident, just like that one time when she'd been seven (only it wouldn't fail if it came down to it). Of course, no one thought or even came onto the notion that a seven year old could want to kill themselves so the possible linking of those incidents would be few and far in between, hypothetically. Really, things just depended on whom the child was; Nyssa had found odds usually differed between her and other children. Barbara had even said she was a kid genius once when she was within earshot, she'd liked the woman a little more for that since then.

Bruce had never said anything of the like, and if he had, Nyssa had never heard it in her entire fourteen years of miserable, forlorn life. Her hearing was remarkably better than average too.

The hand gun was cool in her lithe hands. It shook with the tremors of excitement that wracked her entire frame but not so much that it would affect her point blank range aim.

Aim didn't really matter when the barrel touched your head and you were gone. It was all of a sudden, just like that. Maybe that was what had drawn Nyssa to this form in the first place, several years after her first measly attempt.

A speed was in it, surely giving her the delusional feeling of power as the bullet tore through her brain matter.

Yes, she supposed. That was probably why she wanted to do it this way.

Life was hard, she mulled. Everything was so perfect, everyone so strict and brilliant while she was merely Bruce Wayne's bastard child. Her older brother Damian barely looked at her the sparse few times Barbara had dragged him over for birthdays. Duke was never around, Nyssa didn't even know what Cassandra sounded like, nevermind _looked_ like, Barbara looked at her these days with something akin to irritation, barely putting up with her and Bruce...

Bruce never even talked to her. Unless it was something trivial, perhaps a reminder to do something he wanted her to -like go to school, for example, or to eat dinner alone because he was going to be home late- Bruce didn't even give her the time of day small talk took.

She'd never even heard him say, _"I love you,"_ once.

Not once and she was fourteen.

Her hands moved by themselves, skimming over the metal that soothed her racing, jumping heart that skipped with each breath, soothing her racing pulse that thrumed with every different second. The gun was a remnant of Jason Todd's time in the manor, and she'd found the gun stashed under his bed in a floorboard that was loose but hadn't been lifted in years. Perks of exploring alone, she guessed. Not that she had anyone to do it with otherwise.

In the end, after a full three seconds of gaping at it, she'd lifted it like a frail old woman and had hidden it in her jumper after making sure that it wouldn't blow half her chest off accidentally. (Well, not that she knew how guns worked, she'd just fiddled with it and taken the bullets out, stashing them in her pocket where they jingled like Christmas bells.) Nyssa is sure she's never ran as fast as she did when she'd sprinted back to her own room, intent on pulling up one of her own loose floorboards, that was hidden from view, to hide the weapon she definitely _wasn't_ meant to have.

She cocked the little smooth arching piece by the front of the barrel, horizontally situated just above the trigger. Nyssa didn't know what it was called, but then, did she really need to?

The answer to that was quite obvious and simultaneously unimportant. Bruce was out at the office, he would be back soon and she wanted her blood to be fresh when he got back. Maybe then he would cry over her, show some emotion that wasn't blank facedness, monotonic expressions that equalled and meant nothing.

Would Bruce cry?

She hoped so.

Nyssa lifted the barrel to the side of her head, shivering briefly as the cold washed over her for all but a few seconds. She sturdied herself, breath now freezing up as her chest exploded in emotions. Shoulders set, back straight, she closed her eyes and readied to pull the trigger, her long index finger running down the smooth metal to find the cage which ensconed the--

The sound of the front door opening loudly washed into her room, courtesy of her slightly ajar door. Nyssa froze.

"Nyssa!" Bruce called, "I have something to show you," the sound of the living room door being opened made her heart rate quicken. "Nyssa! Where are you?"

She panicked as the sound of his shoes stomping up the stairs met her ears. Hurriedly, she shoved the gun _she was not meant to have, nevermind know about_ under her pillow, uncaring if it got it dirty from whatever traces of dust still lingered on it. Nyssa brushed her slightly gritty hands off on her skirt and sat down on her bed covers. She bent over lightly, pulling a leg to rest on her other by the ankle, pulling her sock off to make her look idle.

The door opened just as she began to put the sock back on, looking up just as her father poked his head through the doorway. She blinked at him, hopefully innocently enough as to not warrant suspicion.

_But why would he be suspicious,_ she asked herself, while offering her father a curious smile. _When there is nothing at all suspicious here?_

"Nyssa," he nodded back, knowing her true name now even if her body wasn't yet female. Slipping into her room with a bunch of paperwork behind his back, he presented it to her and she blinked as a magazine fluttered into her lap, a big huge _'Wayne Enterprises hits first place in Fortune 500 contest!'_ scrawled as the top headline. "Isn't it brilliant?"

Nyssa's fake smile hurt her worse than ever, far more than the one from before. "It's great, dad. Well done."

_Help me,_ she silently screamed. _Pl_ _ease!_

 

-/-/-

**The Third.**

-/-/-

 

Barbara stares at the girl lying prone, skin ashen and eyes sunken against the fresh white of the hospital bed sheets. She's only seventeen yet she's lying here, in Gotham Royal, unconscious due to a drug overdose. One that Bruce adamantly claimed was probably an accident.

"Someone just doesn't take _too many_ painkillers _accidentally_ , Bruce!" She hissed, too angry to sit on the second blue plastic chair beside the man she openly called her second father. "That's not something that happens _accidentally!"_

"She gets bad headaches," Bruce reiterated once more for what had to be the fifth time in the past five minutes. "I'm sure she would never be so careless otherwise."

"A 'bad headache' doesn't do this, B!" She fumed, chest heaving as all the possibilities ran through her head. God, what if her little sister was suicidal? Barbara didn't think she could take another member of the family dieing, even if she didn't particularly like them. "Don't tell me you _really_ think that?"

"I'm not going to call my daughter suicidal after _one_ incident, Barbara!" Bruce hissed back, voice raising for the first time since their 'conversation' had begun. "She knows better!"

"Does she really, B?" Barbara threw back, knowing full well how hard it was to live with Bruce no matter how long. It was like living with a statue, something hollow and so bonechillingly emotionless that it _physically_ hurt. "When have you told her you love her, does she even know the fucking meaning of that word, Bruce?"

" _Language,"_ Bruce bit back, face twisting into a horrible scowl she hadn't witnessed in years. "How dare you, _of course_ she does! She's my daughter why would she not?"

Barbara sneered, "You're not exactly the easiest to read, Bruce. The only things you do nowadays is fantasize about that company of yours - do you even spend time with her?"

"Yes!" Bruce stood, posture built to intimidate as he pulled his shoulders back to display a threatening array of muscles. "How could you even _think_ that I did not!?"

Barbara was about to fire back a snarky, hurtful jab but they both froze as the subject of their argument shifted and groaned.

Bleary eyes opened and blinked themselves into focus, Barbara was by the younger girls side in an instant.

"Hey," she cooed softly, recognising the look of subdued fear in the girls eyes. Her spooked grey eyes shone blue against the white and pale almost grey quality of her skin. "You alright, kid?"

Nyssa blinked at her, her eyes flickering between the two of them before they settled on her, probably because Barbara had deliberately moved herself closer to be in the in-focus range. "W-What..?"

"You overdosed on painkillers, kid." Barbara said softly, watching closely as those eyes moved around in surprise and as her brows furrowed in confusion. "You remember?"

Nyssa gaped like a fish for a second, looking like she was honestly trying to remember. Barbara felt herself wonder if her concern really was unfounded.

"I- I remember my head hurting," the girl said and wow, she was still just a teenager wasn't she? Nyssa swallowed, "An- And I couldn't really see..."

Barbara nodded for her to continue. Bruce was being oddly silent, Barbara didn't dare look at him, knowing what she'd see.

"I- I can't believe I near- nearly ov- _overdosed."_ Her eyes flickered with distress and Barbara laid her woes to rest, seems like the girl really had only had a _very_ close call.

Barbara patted her shoulder, as awkward as it was at the angle the kid was lying and where she was sitting, but she still pulled it off. "It's fine, you're good now, kid. Sleep."

Nyssa gave her a thankful look before her eyes fluttered shut. Minutes later the heart monitor signaled her fall to the depths of sleep.

She stood, "I have to get back to the office. Justice doesn't wait for anything."

Barbara reckons she ignored the smug, knowing look Bruce gave her well enough. _The damn bastard_ , she scowls as she shuts the door quietly as to not disturb the teen.

Little did they know, this entire incident was far from an accident. If anything, it was just another failed attempt.

 

-/-/-

**The Fourth.**

-/-/-

 

Nyssa has no breath left as she stands atop the skyscraper, largely ignored by society due to the sheer height she's at. No one will see her unless they're behind her. Wayne Enterprises owns the highest 'scraper anyway so she needn't worry about neighbors.

The brisk air of autumn clips at her skin but she's Batwoman and she's handled worse, suit or no. Her hair whips round her like its trying to fill the gaps of darkness in her vision the lack of streetlights causes.

If her City is beautiful at day then it's absolutely comely at night.

With her flashing neon nightclub signs over in the west, her lit up shop windows in the center and her warm neighborhoods over in the east, the ones for the rich that constantly emit a certain warmth she'll never feel in her heart. Even Gotham's dark zone of the south, where Dead End and the Alley are, is gorgeous in its own right. For they, all combined together, make Neo-Gotham - the City that has people who remember what her old name was and still called her by it despite the shunning population that surrounded them all.

A bat flutters by, twittering for long enough that the sound rings in her ears and masks the sound of Barbara's boots crunching along the gravel that coats the roof as she travels across it, walking stick thumping in time.

Her hand, warm and soft and ageing, finds Nyssa's shoulder and the younger woman starts, jumping lightly like a jittery, cornered animal.

"Hey," Barbara soothes from behind, not daring to turn her away from her City, not daring to pull her away from the edge should she push forward. Her voice is softer than Nyssa has ever heard it, especially when directed towards _her._ "It's okay, it's just me. You wanna talk?"

_No,_ Nyssa thinks but doesn't answer.

Barbara doesn't speak either and for a long moment they stand there, wind howling in their ears as their hair flutters like untamed birds. The redhead moves forward a tad, the movement so close to the edge drawing Nyssa's eyes like a moth to a flame.

To Nyssa's confusion, Barbara eases herself down, walking stick shooting out at an odd angle as she sits down. The older woman looks up at her, half rims glinting off her City's lights, and pats the space beside her.

"You're not going to let an old woman like me sit here all alone, are you?"

Something in her eyes attracts Nyssa and before she knows it, she's stepping forward, Barbara's eyes glued to her stiff form. She stands on the edge, the little cornice, but doesn't go further, neither does she sit.

If Barbara relaxes it's not obvious. Instead, the elder starts talking. About everything and anything, voice raised just so that it won't carry to those below but so that she can hear it.

"Bruce used to tell us to 'stand up and take it' if we got injured. Rachel, on the other hand, when her and Jase were around, used to give us a talk about how it was 'alright to hurt, as long as we got help' and patched us up." The woman's tone is strained with longing at the mention of Rachel and Jason. Practically a taboo at this point. "I loved her, not the way a sister should've and although I never told her, I'm pretty sure she knew."

"Oh?" Nyssa surprises even herself as she hums in response.

"Yeah," Barbara covers her surprise with a self-deprecating laugh. "She always had that gleam in her eyes, like she just _knew._ Rachel was like that for everyone though."

Silence settles once more but Nyssa isn't listening to the steady gush of the wind anymore. Instead, she looks to her left and finds she can see Wayne Tower from her vantage point. Nyssa scans it and finds her favourite gargoyle perched over the underground tunnels.

She sighs. "Bruce is.. was always an enigma to me. I wanted attention for stupid things--

"Like what?" Barbara interrupts, throwing her off her trail.

"Like.... I don't know, for being there, completing my homework quickly. Getting first place in tests, stupid shit like that." Nyssa huffed, eyes watering completely and only because of the cold air stinging them.

"Stuff that was important then, though. Right?" Barbara hit the nail on the head a little too hard for her liking.

Nyssa can't find it in her to respond.

Barbara saves her the pain, "I was suicidal for a very long time." She admitted, "Rachel helped for a bit but then she vanished and I became Batgirl and crap went down the drain."

"My arms are scarred up to the elbows," she continues. "They hurt sometimes but every time they do, I'm reminded of how people love me and how, even if I don't want to be here, people need me."

Nyssa's breath catches painfully in her lungs.

Barbara doesn't seem to notice. "Tim found me the first time. In my en-suite, bleeding out in the bath from my wrists." She laughed abasingly. Nyssa's wrists burn at the mention of the other woman cutting too. "I remember climbing into it because I didn't want my blood to stain the nice tiles that cost more than my dad's annual salary. Didn't really work out in the end as Tim hauled me out and got blood everywhere anyway."

Nyssa stands there, head buzzing and ears ringing, for far too long before she sits down in a flurry, startling Barbara out of her monologuing.

"How many times did you try?" Nyssa asks, voice hoarse.

"Five."

Nyssa cries, shoulders sagging on on herself. "I wanted to jump, _really._ "

Barbara's arm wraps around her shoulders, and the older woman is completely aware of how the younger girl could pull them both off in the blink of an eye. She doesn't seem to mind though. "I know. Just remember that we love you, Niss. We love you for what you are. Always will."

 

-/-/-

**The Fifth.**

-/-/-

 

Maybe she'll be lucky, Nyssa hopes as she stares down the drop from the second floor banister to the first. It's quite a long one. Maybe her neck'll break from the force she jumps and swings with.

Maybe.

The rope was thick in her hands, loving as its ends and splits dug into her thin fingers. Nyssa spared the banister a glance before shaking it. It stayed firm. She slung herself onto it, swinging her legs around to hover over the daunting yet loving drop.

The banister took her weight easily, not even groaning. Nyssa was light anyway, her ribs were very nearly visible when she was shirtless and almost twice now the demon had lifted her and clicked his tongue at her weight. She was too light, he said. Nyssa didn't care.

Said demon, Icarus, was trying to bond with her. To help her fight against the scourge that was plaguing her city now that Batwoman had been gone for three years. Truth be told, while the army had strengthened her heart, Bruce's death had shattered her despite everything. Barbara had looked her firm in the eyes the night before she was leaving back to her apartment downtown and had clearly implied Gotham needed Batwomam.

Thus she'd taken back the cowl and she'd promptly been beaten into the ground by some loner lurking in the alleyway. It hadn't been nice. Nyssa had returned to the Cave bleeding and hurt and Icarus had seized his opportunity. He'd been hounding her since. That had been five weeks ago.

Batwoman had been publicly shamed now. What sort of Bat got beaten by Poison Ivy on Live News? Not a good one, that's what.

Nyssa hummed her tune as she swung her legs back and forth like an aspiring toddler. Barbara hadn't talked to her since but her pitiful look lingered still everywhere she went, Al Ghul was likely sitting in his desert throne laughing at her, Duke was probably off doing fuck knows what and Bruce was definitely rolling in his grave.

"Fuck what they think," she declared. She tied the rope around the banister, between the sturdy wooden bars and sighed.

Living was draining. It was amazing she'd even made it to twenty-five.

Not a miracle though, never was her living ever a _'miracle'._

Everyone seemed to agree too.

She coughed, ribs reminding her that was a bad thing to do as they twinged, sending jolts of running pain shooting through her entire being. Nyssa grips the banister tighter at just one reminder of how badly Ivy beat her in front of _everyone._

Why didn't she just pull that trigger, all those years ago? Why couldn't she have done it instantly, as the front door opened. If she had of, would she have seen Bruce's surprised face before the end, cheeks red and breathing skewered from sprinting up the stairs at the sound of a gunshot?

God, she was terrible. Wishing pain upon others simply because she had too much. People wouldn't care anyway, no one liked her. She was the outcast, the bastard child who had ran off to join the army, the child who'd sulked back at her father's death and the only one to bring such shame upon the Wayne name. The one born male but hadn't had the guts to stick with it.

How depressing.

How pathetic.

She was disgusting.

The Therapist wasn't even any good at her job. Nyssa had sat there in silence as the woman ranted at her about how it was detrimental to the environment to kill yourself. She'd stopped going after the second session, when she'd burst into tears afterwards.

"Nyssa?" Duke's voice echoed around the foyer. One of the family that knew of her suicidal... _habits_. "What are ye doin' up dere?"

Nyssa played it off, hiding her surprise under a façade of cheerfulness. She winked at him, "I was going to see if I could land safely."

Duke raised an eyebrow at her shitty excuse. "Wit' a length o' rope?"

She could recover this, the noose hadn't been tied yet anyway. "For safety precautions."

Duke laughed as he peered at the end, hanging a good nine feet from the ground. "It don' even reach tha bott'm, Niss."

Nyssa ducked her head, for all appearances looking embarrased. "I measured it wrong."

Duke shook his head, looking amused, but his body language said anything but. His shoulders were tense, his brows strung together tighter than a violin's strings. He was concerned, if Nyssa's ability to read people wasn't playing tricks on her.

Everyone was always so _concerned._ It made everything seem so dull.

"Righ'eo. If yer sure," he hummed, charm not having left him even at his age. He looked as young as ever, leather jacket on his back and ripped grey jeans on his legs. The backpack on his back raised her curiosity.

"Any particular reasons as to why you're visiting, Duke?" She asked, trying to hide the vehemence which boiled with in her at yet another failed attempt. Her wrists ached.

"Am'ah no' 'lowed to come visit my lil' sis?" Duke laughed, slinging his backpack onto his shoulder better as it threatened to slip down. His hands flying to his hips. "How ya been, kid?"

_It's a_ _lways kid,_ she thought, irritation bubbling under her skin. "Good," she responded still, "and you?"

Duke motioned for her to come down and she did so with a push of her legs. The view she got was beautiful, of everything from the stairwell to the nicest sight of the chair by the portraits and the golden frames of the paintings themselves. The carpet down below shone in the sunlight that peeped through the grand window above the door. Duke himself was gaping at her appreciatingly.

She landed with a flourish after pulling off one last somersault. Duke whistled and clapped, "Nice. Ah've been well, wanderin' 'bout N'Jersey for a bit. Gettin' me bearin's."

Nyssa smiled at the praise and maybe it was just a tad more real than usual. "Oh? Finding anything new?"

Duke grinned like he had a thousand stories to tell and Nyssa didn't dare doubt. He dragged them both into the living room, barely a hint of hesitancy in his voice when he asked if she'd been trying to kill herself.

She said no.

 

-/-/-

**The Final.**

-/-/-

 

Nyssa wakes up cold, blankets that are thin and threadbare barely covering her naked form. A man lies beside her, form bathed in shadows of the rising sun's beams that slither in through the ratty curtains.

She curls slightly, hating the way the bed springs dig into her, the way her heart bleeds and screams in agony. Nyssa's just so done, done with life, with the trouble it brings. She's too tired to keep the fake, cheerful smile up anymore.

Consequences and worried looks be damned. Nyssa is fed up with everything and she won't hide it anymore.

Batwoman is falling behind, more enemies are popping up daily and she can't handle everything alone. With the added pressure and stress of the Justice League breathing down her neck, wanting her to join...

She can't take it anymore.

So she'd went out to a non-descript, no name pub last night and she'd drunk and drunk and drunk until she could barely breathe, until she couldn't feel the disappointed weight of Icarus looming in her head or the imaginary frown and sharp words of her dead father. She quite literally drowned her woes, and she'd apparently picked up a fling along the way.

Nyssa got out of the bed, not feeling it in her to shiver as her feet hit the cold wooden floorboards. The lack of presence in her mind signified Icarus was either too busy to pester her or the demon was doing his version of sleep, hanging upside down from a stalactite in the Cave. Nyssa hoped it was the latter, it meant he was less likely to stop her from doing what she intended to do.

She pulled on the scruffy jeans she'd wore the night before. The man in the bed groaned something, and she spared him a bored glance to find he was merely shifting in the blanket, pulling it closer. Nyssa pulled on the clumsy shirt, buttoning it up to the minimum before she escaped through the apartment's front door.

The cool morning breeze snipped at her, sliding over narrow bones and numb skin. She relished the feel of the movement against her torso, humming a jaunty old tune that she only knew thanks to Icarus, as she stumbled down the narrow road, the dockside one.

Her feet are bare, her plimsoles are clutched loosely in her hands but that's alright. If anything, Nyssa _enjoys_ the way the stones that litter the small pavement dig into her unprotected feet, how they scratch at her and possibly even make her bleed (she does not truly know if they do, for she's too far gone).

For a moment, Nyssa envisions her blood seeping out onto the pavement in a trail behind her. She remembers the golden brick road, pretends the pavement is actually made of bricks and replaces the image of shiny golden bricks with red bricks, weeping with her blood. Nyssa can see it clearly as she stops by the dock's edge, where no barriers stand; a beautiful trail, a path, of red, just for her.

She wonders if it hurts to drown. She jumps in anyway, Icarus screaming in her ears.

Nyssa closes her eyes against the sting of salt as something heavy and huge dives into the water. She opens her grey balls of intent to see a hulking shadow, leathery ripped wings spread wide, eyes glowing a sharp, unforgiving red.

 _Hold your breath, Nyssa._ Icarus' voice rolls around in her head, too loud against the dumb muteness of the water lapping at her. _It's okay._

His fur tickles her before his arms touch her limp body. In seconds she's hugged to his chest, being curled in it as the demon flaps his wings and forces them out of the water with a burst of power.

Then, they're hovering above the water, Nyssa practically coughing up a lung, hair sticking to her clammily as Icarus swishes them back and forth, humming something deep in his thoat in Old Norse.

"I love you, Nyssa." Icarus says aloud in his deep, gutteral growl when she's calmed down and they both know she won't drown. "Please never do that again."

She doesn't attempt to kill herself after that. Even when Barbara's on her death bed and when Duke gives up the suit for a son he's never met.

Instead, Nyssa lives with Icarus by her side and he helps her guard _their_ City.


End file.
